Sacrifice (Ritual Sins #2)

7. Rose

7

Rose

“Rose, wait!”

Sebastian hurried after me, but I kept going down the moonlit track, teeth gritted with determination. He caught up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Rose. Stop .”

The commanding note in his voice finally halted me, and I swung around to face him. “Sebastian, I have to do this.”

“No. You don’t.” He stared down at me, forehead etched with concern. “I know you want answers. I want them too. But more than that… you want freedom. Right?”

“I do want to leave, yes.”

“So let’s just go. It’s three o’clock in the morning. Everyone in the village is asleep except for the two guys on the night watch. We can go to the gate, make them let us out, and get the hell away from here.” He paused and patted his right pocket. “We might have to threaten the guys with my gun to make them let us out, but in the end, no one will get hurt. It’s the best outcome for everyone.”

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek as I considered his plan. It would work, but…

I shook my head. “I can’t. I have to speak to my father.”

“Rose.” Sebastian’s hand felt heavier on my shoulder now. His voice was tinged with a blend of irritation and worry. “If you confront him, he’ll know what we’ve been up to, and he’ll do anything in his power to keep you here. He’ll probably wake the whole fucking village to hunt us down before we can even think about getting through that gate.”

“I think it’s a risk we have to take,” I replied. “We need to know once and for all what happened to your mother, and we aren’t going to get any of those answers unless we confront him.”

He sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Jesus, Rose,” he muttered. “You’re right, but… I don’t want you to get hurt, baby girl. I need to keep you safe.”

“And I need to help you get justice. Let me do this. Please.” I reached for his hand, rubbing my thumb across his palm. “I know you’ll never have any peace unless you know for certain what happened to Miranda. You know it too. It’s consumed your whole life.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he swallowed thickly and steeled his jaw. “Fine. We can talk to him,” he said gruffly. “But we’ll make it quick and leave immediately afterwards, before he has a chance to tell anyone else what’s happening. All right?”

“Yes. That’s fine.” I turned back to the path toward the village, Sebastian following closely behind me.

When we finally arrived at my front door, I turned to him again. “I need you to do one more thing for me,” I said.

“What?”

“Let me have a few minutes with him first. Just the two of us.”

His eyes narrowed. “No fucking way,” he said, arms crossing over his chest. “It’s not safe.”

“Please, Sebastian. There are a few things I feel I should say to him by myself,” I said. “That way he knows it’s coming from me, and that I wasn’t simply taken in and brainwashed by an outsider.”

He sighed and scratched his jaw. A mix of frustration and concern was flashing in his eyes. “Jeez, baby girl, you’re killing me,” he muttered.

“Ten minutes,” I pleaded. “Then you can come in.”

“Five minutes,” he said stiffly. “And I’ll be right outside this door the whole time.”

I nodded and hurried inside. “Papa?” I called upstairs as I lit a lamp on the kitchen table.

He called back down a moment later, voice husky with sleep. “Rosamund, did you call me?”

“Yes. Can you come downstairs, please?”

I heard a grunt of irritation, followed by clunking footsteps on the stairs. My father appeared at the bottom a moment later, face drawn with exhaustion. “Rosamund, it’s after three o’clock in the morning,” he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “What on earth is going on?”

“Please sit down,” I said, motioning toward one of the kitchen chairs. “I need to speak with you about something.”

“All right.” He moved toward the chair, smothering a yawn with one hand. He didn’t look suspicious yet. Just confused. “What’s on your mind, darling?”

I remained standing, eyes focused right on his face. “Papa, you’ve always told me that outsiders refer to the Covenant as a cult. They say we’re all brainwashed and not allowed to leave, apart from the few that go to college,” I began. “You’ve always told me that it isn’t true. That anyone can leave whenever they want. But no one ever has because Alderwood is like heaven on earth, and the work we do here is so important.”

“Yes, that’s all true.”

“So if someone wanted to leave, they could? No questions asked?”

Papa rubbed his chin. “Well, I’d certainly have questions. But ultimately, it is their decision to go, and I wouldn’t stop them. Nor would anyone else in the village.” He yawned again before going on. “May I ask what has prompted this topic of conversation so late at night, darling?”

I took a deep breath and lifted my chin. “I’m leaving, Papa.”

He blinked slowly, like he was wondering if he was still asleep and dreaming. “Pardon me?”

“I’m leaving Alderwood. I have lost my faith, and I no longer wish to be sacrificed at the Tetrad. I want to join the outside world.”

He rose to his feet, face thunderstruck. “What?” he said sharply. “Is this some sort of joke?”

“No, Papa.” I kept my chin boldly lifted. “It is my choice. And you just said yourself—you will not stop me. Nor will anyone else.”

“Rosamund, wait. Think about what you’re saying. The Tetrad is only three days away.” He cut his eyes at the clock. “Well, closer to two now. You cannot leave. We need you!”

“You just told me that I can leave if I choose to do so. Now you’re saying I can’t?”

“I didn’t mean… I just meant…” He shook his head and trailed off, seemingly too confused to form a coherent train of thought, let alone a coherent sentence. “What… what has happened to you tonight, darling? What has prompted this sudden loss of faith? Is it nerves?”

“No, it’s not nerves. ” My eyes narrowed, and I folded my arms. “I went to the forbidden cave, Papa.”

His face blanched. “No. You didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. I guessed the code to the secret door, and I saw what you’re hiding in there,” I said. “There’s no evil Darkness lurking within. Only a major drug operation that you’re clearly using to make money for the Covenant.”

I thought Papa would be furious at my admission. Instead, he sagged in the chair, one shaky hand scraping through his hair. “Oh, no,” he muttered. “No, no, no. Rosamund, please. You must understand—”

I cut him off, voice turning shrill. “I understand perfectly, Papa. I’ve heard things in the past from all the men who go to college, you know. They say the drug trade in the outside world is a terrible thing. That outsiders get sick and die all the time because of it,” I said. “You’re keeping our little paradise up here running off the backs of outsiders. Outsiders who can suffer and die because of you .”

Panic was flashing in his eyes now. “Rosamund, just listen—”

“Stop interrupting me!” I snapped. “I’m not done yet!”

Papa let out a glum sigh, shoulders deflating. “Fine,” he muttered wearily. “Finish.”

I narrowed my eyes and continued my furious diatribe. “It’s bad enough that you’re basically a drug dealer. But what’s far worse is that you know our religion is a false one. The Darkness isn’t real. It’s just something you and the other elders use to control the rest of us while you—”

It was Papa’s turn to cut me off. “Stop!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “The Darkness is real!”

“No, it’s not, Papa. Neither is the Entity.” I gritted my teeth. “Did you forget that I went in the cave? I saw everything!”

He clenched his jaw and shakily raised a palm. “You are right in some respects. Yes, there are things we hide in the cave for the benefit of everyone here. I will not deny that. But I will not allow you to make these blasphemous claims, Rosamund.”

“There is no blasphemy in what I say. Only truth.” Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes, and I choked out my next words. “You were going to let me die , Papa. You were going to kill your own daughter in the name of a false god!”

“No. Darling, no. ” Papa drew closer to me and reached out in an attempt to hug me. I cowered away from him, and he dropped his hands, head shaking. “Please, Rosamund. Please believe me. The Entity is real. His teachings are real. The work we do here in Alderwood is real. ”

“I don’t believe that anymore.”

“You must! We are all true believers here!” he said. “We only hide certain things for the benefit of everyone, as I already stated. Not because we are liars.”

“That’s not true. You are a liar.” I shook my head as more tears welled in my eyes. “I can’t believe you were going to let me die.”

“Do you think I wanted that?” Papa said, fury suddenly flaring in his eyes. His hands balled into fists at his sides. “Do you think I was happy when Celeste died giving birth to you? Do you think I was happy when you were instantly marked as the fourth celestial virgin? You think I was happy with the knowledge that my only child wouldn’t even live to thirty before the Tetrad arrived?”

“Yes, Papa,” I murmured. “You were happy, and you were proud . ”

He shook his head, jaw twitching. “No. The pride only came later, when I realized how blessed I was to have such an important daughter. But my first feelings were rage and horror,” he said in a low voice. “I hated the Entity in that moment, and I had to pray very hard, for years, to make those impious feelings go away. I wanted my wife back, and I wanted my daughter to have a long, happy life. I did not want her to be sacrificed.”

I sniffed and wiped my puffy, leaking eyes. “Yet you were still going to allow it.”

My father was crying now too. “Rosamund, please,” he said, voice thick with emotion. He briefly shuttered his eyes. Then he drew in a deep breath and continued. “The sacrifices are important. You know this. They are the most important part of our work because of what the lifeblood of an innocent does for our land. It is magic . The Covenant doctrines have always said this, and we must abide by them, even if we are personally unhappy with the path that certain lives must take as a result. It is all for the greater good.”

I slowly shook my head as his words sank in. “Even if you are a true believer, Papa, I cannot believe you would do this to me. I cannot believe you would allow your own daughter to be sacrificed.”

“Rosamund… you were happy to do it. All these years, you looked forward to it. Just like the other virgins.”

“Yes, I did, because I was completely and utterly brainwashed. But now I see clearly.” My words were ironic, given how my eyes were completely blurred with tears right now. “You never really loved me. Not if you were willing to let me die.”

Papa’s face crumpled, and another wave of tears flooded his cheeks as his head shook. “How can you say this to me?” he said. “I have always loved you, so very much. I tell you all the time. Have you not felt it, darling?”

I chewed on my bottom lip, considering my next words carefully. “I always felt love from you. I heard you tell me, too, and I believed it.” I hesitated and cocked my head. “But at the same time… there has always been a strange distance between us, hasn’t there? Despite that love, it’s been there all along.”

I’d always thought it was because I was a girl, and as a single father, Papa had found himself out of his depth, unable to relate to me on certain levels and issues. Like when I started my monthly moonblood, for example. He was kind and supportive when I informed him, but that odd distance between us still existed, starker than ever in those awkward moments. I’d longed for a womanly presence in my life then, to provide me with everything my father found himself unable to give, but I’d accepted years ago that it simply wasn’t for me.

“Rosamund, I love you. I always have and I always will,” Papa said, not-so-smoothly evading my question.

I folded my arms. “Explain it, then. Explain the distance between us,” I said sharply. “Is it because I’m a woman and you’re a man? Because that’s what I always put it down to before now, and I understand and accept it if that’s the case. I just want you to tell me the truth for once.”

“There is no distance between us.” His chest was heaving with harsh, shallow breaths, and his eyes had turned wild, as if he were on the brink of something. “I have tried my very best to raise you by myself, and I know sometimes that doesn’t—”

“Just stop it!” I shrieked. “Stop lying!”

He lifted both his palms, still breathing deeply like he was trying to retain a semblance of control over himself. “I’m not lying,” he gritted out.

“Yes, you are! You know exactly what I’m talking about, and you’re pretending it doesn’t exist. I just want—”

“You killed her!” he suddenly roared, rising to his full height.

I blinked, certain I’d misheard him. “What?”

“You want to know why there’s always been some distance between us? That’s why!” he went on, furious and wild-eyed. “Because you killed her!”

I shrank back, jaw slowly dropping. Papa’s words had hit me like a physical blow, leaving me reeling. His resentment toward me, buried beneath years of lies, suddenly laid bare.

“I can’t believe you would say that. It wasn’t my fault,” I murmured, head shaking ever so slightly. “I was just a baby. It’s not my fault Mama died.”

Another wave of anguish surged through me as the weight of his hidden resentment settled over me, drowning me in a torrent of guilt, sorrow, and disbelief. How could he blame me for something I had no control over?

The knowledge that my entire existence had been a source of pain for him twisted my heart in a way I never thought possible. I simply couldn’t believe it, and yet I had to, because he’d shouted those words so loudly and clearly.

“It’s not my fault,” I repeated. “It’s not fair to blame me for that. I wish Mama was here more than anything.”

Papa sagged in his chair again, eyes focusing on the wall behind me. “I’m not talking about your mother, Rosamund.”

I blinked the blur of tears away. “What?”

“I’m talking about Miranda Thorne,” he said in a low voice. “She died because of you .”